FILM DIRECTORS from Ireland

Top 8

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Irish Film Directors of all time. This list of famous Irish Film Directors is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Neil Jordan (b. 1950)

With an HPI of 56.51, Neil Jordan is the most famous Irish Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 33 different languages on wikipedia.

Neil Patrick Jordan (born 25 February 1950) is an Irish film director, screenwriter, novelist and short-story writer. He first achieved recognition for his short story collection, Night in Tunisia, which won the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1979. After a stint working at RTÉ, he made his directorial debut with the 1982 film Angel. His best-known films include the crime thrillers Mona Lisa (1986) and The Crying Game (1992), the horror dramas Interview with the Vampire (1994) and Byzantium (2012), the biopic Michael Collins (1996), the black comedy The Butcher Boy (1997), the Graham Greene adaptation The End of the Affair (1999), the transgender-themed dramedy Breakfast on Pluto (2005), and the psychological thriller Greta (2018). Jordan also created the Showtime Network television series The Borgias (2011–2013) and Sky Atlantic's Riviera (2017–2020). He is the recipient of numerous accolades for his film work, including an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, three IFTA Film & Drama Awards, a Golden Lion and a Silver Bear. In 1996, he was honoured with receiving the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

2. Jim Sheridan (b. 1949)

With an HPI of 52.61, Jim Sheridan is the 2nd most famous Irish Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 29 different languages.

Jim Sheridan (born 6 February 1949) is an Irish playwright and filmmaker. Between 1989 and 1993, Sheridan directed three critically acclaimed films set in Ireland, My Left Foot (1989), The Field (1990), and In the Name of the Father (1993), and later directed the films The Boxer (1997), In America (2003), and Brothers (2009). Sheridan has received six Academy Award nominations for his work.

3. Herbert Brenon (1880 - 1958)

With an HPI of 50.68, Herbert Brenon is the 3rd most famous Irish Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 26 different languages.

Herbert Brenon (born Alexander Herbert Reginald St. John Brenon; 13 January 1880 – 21 June 1958) was an Irish-born U.S. film director, actor and screenwriter during the era of silent films through 1940. Brenon was among the early filmmakers who, before the rise of corporate film production, was a genuine "auteur", controlling virtually all creative and technical components in crafting his pictures. The quality of Brenon's artistic output rivaled that of film pioneer D. W. Griffith. Brenon was among the first directors to achieve celebrity status among moviegoers for his often spectacular cinematic inventions. Among his most notable films are Neptune's Daughter (1914), Peter Pan (1925), A Kiss for Cinderella (1925), and the original film version of Beau Geste (1926).

4. Steve Barron (b. 1956)

With an HPI of 49.08, Steve Barron is the 4th most famous Irish Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Steven Barron (born 4 May 1956) is an Irish filmmaker and music video director. Among the music videos he has directed are "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson, "Summer of '69" and "Run to You" by Bryan Adams, "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits, "Electric Avenue" and "I Don't Wanna Dance" by Eddy Grant, "Going Underground" by The Jam, "Don't You Want Me" by The Human League, "Baby Jane" by Rod Stewart, "Pale Shelter" by Tears for Fears, "Africa" by Toto, and "Take On Me" by A-ha. The videos for "Take On Me", "Africa", and "Billie Jean" have each garnered over 1 billion views on YouTube. Barron also directed several films, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), Coneheads (1993), and The Adventures of Pinocchio (1996).

5. Rex Ingram (1892 - 1950)

With an HPI of 47.13, Rex Ingram is the 5th most famous Irish Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Rex Ingram (born Reginald Ingram Montgomery Hitchcock; 15 January 1893 – 21 July 1950) was an Irish film director, producer, writer, and actor. Director Erich von Stroheim once called him "the world's greatest director".

6. William Desmond Taylor (1872 - 1922)

With an HPI of 44.85, William Desmond Taylor is the 6th most famous Irish Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

William Desmond Taylor (born William Cunningham Deane-Tanner; 26 April 1872 – 1 February 1922) was an Anglo-Irish-American film director and actor. A popular figure in the growing Hollywood motion picture colony of the 1910s and early 1920s, Taylor directed fifty-nine silent films between 1914 and 1922 and acted in twenty-seven between 1913 and 1915. Taylor's murder on 1 February 1922, along with other Hollywood scandals such as the Roscoe Arbuckle trial, led to a frenzy of sensationalist and often fabricated newspaper reports. The murder remains an official cold case.

7. Lenny Abrahamson (b. 1966)

With an HPI of 40.80, Lenny Abrahamson is the 7th most famous Irish Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 25 different languages.

Leonard Ian Abrahamson (born 30 November 1966) is an Irish film and television director. He is best known for directing independent films Adam & Paul (2004), Garage (2007), What Richard Did (2012), Frank (2014), and Room (2015), all of which contributed to Abrahamson's six Irish Film and Television Awards. In 2015, he received widespread recognition for directing Room, based on the novel of the same name by Emma Donoghue. The film received four nominations at the 88th Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director for Abrahamson. In 2020, he directed six episodes of and executive produced the television series Normal People, for which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series.

8. John Moore (b. 1970)

With an HPI of 38.07, John Moore is the 8th most famous Irish Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

John Moore (born 1 January 1970) is an Irish film director and producer whose credits include the action war film Behind Enemy Lines and A Good Day to Die Hard.